Wilderness Watch is urging the U.S. Forest Service to drop its massive manipulation project that would set fire to as many as 84,000 acres of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) in Minnesota. The misguided Fernberg Corridor Landscape Management Project has no place in Wilderness and would violate the mandate of the 1964 Wilderness Act to preserve the area’s wilderness character. In addition, the project could include using helicopters and chainsaws, another violation of the letter and spirit of the law.
The 1.1-million-acre BWCAW is the largest Wilderness east of the Rockies and north of the Everglades. It has over 1,000 lakes, connected by portage trails, rivers, and streams, and stretches for almost 150 miles along the international border. Its 150,000 yearly visitors make it one of the most visited Wildernesses. The Fernberg Road ends at Lake One, and the BWCAW surrounds the Fernberg Corridor on three sides, with homes, cabins, and developments within the corridor.
While Wilderness Watch supports restoring fire to its natural role in the BWCAW ecosystem, this project goes about it in the absolute wrong way. The Forest Service has promised since the 1980s that it will allow lightning-caused fires to play their natural role in the BWCAW, but with very few exceptions, has continued to put out nearly all natural fires in the Wilderness over the past 40 years. And while the agency claims that one of the project’s purposes is to allow natural fires to burn in the BWCAW, the draft EA has no analysis about whether, when, or how the agency will allow natural fires to burn if the proposed action occurs.
Manager-ignited fires can have very different effects on a wilderness ecosystem than natural, lightning-caused fires. The ignition location and forest types that managers burn are often different, and the fire type can be very different, too. Managers usually avoid burning under conditions that can cause stand-replacement crown fires, which historically happened in the BWCAW, and prefer lower-intensity ground fires that primarily clear brush and burn shorter ladder fuels. Those different kinds of fires can cause widely divergent effects on the wilderness landscape. And from a wilderness perspective, manager-ignited fires are a prime example of humans imposing their will on Wilderness to try to create managers’ desired conditions rather than allowing nature to shape the area.
Instead of proposing to burn thousands of acres in the BWCAW, the Forest Service should allow natural lightning-caused fires to play their role in the Wilderness. Wilderness Watch is urging the agency to adopt Alternative 3, the No Action in the Wilderness Alternative.
Photo: Brian Hoffman via Flickr
